Last year at this time, WWE Monday Night Raw garnered a 3.23 TV rating while averaging 4.48 million viewers for a two-hour broadcast. This week, another lackluster three-hour Raw scored a 2.72 TV rating and averaged 3.92 million viewers on Monday 11/26/12, including a steep decline to 3.49 million viewers for the final hour of the show.
CB’s Slant: It’s just plain obvious that the three-hour Raw format has not helped the show’s ratings. Perhaps WWE doesn’t care because of the ad revenues they supposedly gain from a third live hour of programming, but at some point that well will run dry too if ratings continue to drop.
Luckily for WWE, the Royal Rumble and the Road to WrestleMania is not too far away and so at the very least The Rock will be returning soon and WWE will start to slowly care again about the product they are putting out there for their fans.
The next few weeks, however, will continue to be painful to watch and I bet the numbers fall even more during the holiday season before picking back up in January.